The Hardening Ground
by hungrytiger11
Summary: That is what her mother use to say: it rains and the earth hardens. Hyuuga-centric; politics and family


Title: The Hardening Ground Beneath Us

Author: hungrytiger11

Summary: That is what her mother use to say: it rains and the earth hardens. Hyuuga-centric; politics and family.

* * *

Thunder cracks, but when Hitomi looks out, the air, while heavy and expectant (like her- Oh Kami, it's not just her imagination. She hadn't been this huge with Hinata-chan, had she?), is empty. Why does it seem like everything always happens when it rains? A contraction has her reaching for her stomach and startles her out of thought. Still twenty minutes apart; nothing to worry over yet.

It rains, and the earth hardens. That is what her mother use to say: it rains and the earth hardens. An adage turned literal, in Hitomi's case. If something was happening, it was sure to rain.

"Okaasan."

Turning from the open shoji door, Hitomi sees her daughter is playing with her fingers again. Reaching down, balancing awkward weight in a way no civilian could have managed this late, she pulls those hands apart.

"Hinata-chan, Otousan already talked to you about this," she gentle reminds. Hinata-chan nods miserably and Hitomi can feel her daughter's fingers tremble against her own swollen hands.

"Does Otousan know you're here?" she asks, taking in the tale-tale elevated veins around Hinata-chan's eyes.

"N-no. O-otousan s-said you were resting; didn't have time for playing." Her daughter's voice is soft and musky, even so young. If it weren't so timid, it'd really be quite soothing to listen to. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches movement and turns just in time to see two figures with paper fans embroidered on their backs walk out the gate.

Ah. So that was why there was not "time for playing," Hitomi surmises. Not because the medics are moaning about her _blood pressure_ or her _delicate circumstance_ again, just that Hiashi is likely feeling inferior his five year old isn't graduating the academy yet. Fugaku-kun always did have the unattractive habit of bragging. The only new development there was now he bragged about his sons, especially that undeniably brilliant but rather stone-eyed heir of his.

"Come on, Hinata-chan," she says while grabbing the wall and carefully sliding herself down before laying with her back to the floor. It is cool, and stretches her out wonderfully, relieving the ache that seemed, in this last week, to have settled permentently into the small of her back. Hinata-chan burrows against her side, head pillowed on an arm. "Otousan just wants you to do as well as well as Uchiha-san's sons do."

Or rather, Hitomi rolls her eyes at the thought, Hiashi sees her old teammate's bragging as a challenge rather than what it is- padding his sons' resumes, so to speak. She's sure Fugaku-kun is looking to arrange a marriage contract, between Hinata-chan and one of his sons, though Hiashi never seemed to believe her when she brought up the possibility. Too far fetched for him to see any Hyuuga woman leave the house of her ancestors, and take the genes for the Byakugan out of their hands. Far better to marry members off to other members. Still, the Uchiha name is no longer holding quite so much sway in council meetings she's noticed, and they have all been relocated, becoming somewhat isolated, quarantined, in the process. To her old teammate, it must be looking like a good time to strengthen out-of-clan ties and there was their old relationship as genin teammates already there to work with.

The sharnigan and the byukugan reunited- super-babies that might excite any mind. Not that Hiashi would see that. Her husband is many things, but for him, it is always the trees, never the forests. Well, as soon as this baby is born, the Uchiha would make their move and she'd be proven right. Boy or girl? - A difference to the line of succession, to which son Fugaku-kun would want to offer. The difference between what it would take to keep both her children out of the essential servitude the seal dictated, a servitude Hiashi never understood to be so bindingly there. That servitude has dictated every action of her life, though she is not so unhappy, as it would turn out. She is however, as always, bound.

Ah, well. A little rain, in all our lives.

She wraps arms up to trace under her daughter's bangs, reassured of the smooth surface beneath. Blinding light fills the room, silhouetting the chairs and their own still bodies. She closes her eyes, momentarily dizzied; and breathes in a scent of storm-bringing.

"My mother always use to say to me, 'it rains and the earth hardens.' Do you know what that means, Hinata-chan?"

Thunder cracks again, and so whatever soft response she might have made is lost, but Hitomi can feel under her palm, her daughter's vigorously shaking head.

"Hmmm, how to explain this? This storm is scary, isn't it? Just a bit?"

Hinata-chan's mouth presses damp against her sleeve, and her answer is barely audible through the cloth. "It's like O-otousan-n-n y-yelling."

Hitomi sighs at that response. Well, it isn't like she didn't know she was currently playing mediator between parent and child. Hitomi just wished it didn't have to happen so often. It is getting so Hinata-chan can't tell what is a reprimand and what is just everyday conversation. Five year olds, she would have to remind Hiashi, live very much in the moment to moment, even freakishly genius one's like Fugaku-kun's sons. Hinata-chan is no different.

"You like the garden, don't you? The plants all need the rain to grow."

"It isn't raining now."

"No," Hitomi agrees. "It isn't, but it will and then the ground will become muddy and messy, and we don't like that very much, do we?"

More head shaking, and Hitomi smiles. The sound of water hitting wood on the egawa starts echoing in from the doorway. She would have to get up to close the shogi door in a moment, but not now. It's so hard to get up and she is comfortable here, except, she grimaces, for that. A contraction. Are they coming faster now? A few more minutes then, and she would get up, close the door, and get bedding ready. They were still not so very close.

"What happens to the ground after it gets muddy, Hinata-chan?"

Her daughter lifts her head, and turns to look out the window. In the gray light of the storm, she can see Hinata-chan's Byakugan is no longer pulsing across her face.

"It…. dries up?"

"Yes," Hitomi agrees, rolling to her side. Another contraction. Faster than she thought. "Bring me a chair, please."

Sounds of muffled footfalls and then wood dragging against wood follow this request. Grabbing onto the chair back, Hitomi pulls her knees up and starts to push herself into a sitting position. Hovering beside her, her daughter grasps tiny hands to her sleeve to help.

"It dries up," she repeats, sitting with much of her weight on her hands. "The ground becomes harder, doesn't it? The next time it rains, it does not become mud so easily; the seeds and young plants do not wash away so much. Have you ever noticed this, Hinata-chan?"

Her daughter says something soft while Hitomi goes to stand, and then something twists inside her and she collapses back down, knocking the chair on its side.

"Okaasan!" Small hands are somehow everywhere, jerking cloth around. She must have hit her head, because Hitomi can't tell which way is up, things are everywhere, beams and furniture and grasping fingers. Branches blowing and roots climbing down below earth, but she can't quite tell which is which. Finally those grasping hands succeed in twisting her around and she reaches out to touch her daughter's face. Byakugan veins are creating ridges in the skin. Reaching back down to touch her own face, Hitomi realizes that her own Byakugan is activated too. She pushes the chakra back and the world shrinks and rights itself.

She's about to laugh it off. A little fall, scaring a fully-trained ninja? Then another shock of pain tears through her sides and she sinks back to the ground. She may even, she is not sure, have cried out.

A flash of light engulfs the room and the thunder explodes across the sky before it even darkens. The storm feels practically on top of the house, over the room, and Hitomi is awash with sudden grief. She wants light, a bright place, or at least, if it must be dark, a clear sky like when there's fireworks and stars. She wants dryness and warmth and sun-baked dirt beneath her back.

"Hinata," she reaches out to touch her daughter's face. "Everything is al-"

Another- something- splits her in two. Not a contraction- she thinks. She doesn't remember; they shouldn't be so close, so soon, should they?

"-Alright," she continues. "But you need to go get your otousan. And get Obaasan, too?"

She already knows what her mother would say; she hopes to Kami her mother-in-law is more useful.

Stupid rain.

The doors burst open, her daughter's face drowned out in a torrent of light flooding across the room. A funny tableau they both make, she thinks, pain racing, stopping her throat, shattering though her skull in a disorienting tumble with no up or down or center of gravity to guide her. And then hands are on her once again and worried faces press close and even if she can't hear them over the storm or figure out how they got there, she can tell they are worried. But she has no more time to tell them not to worry because then the world goes black.

* * *

A/N: Originally written for the Naruto genmeme prompt "Hyguuga politics" but I didn't get it done in time to post there.

It is probably reaaaaaally obvious I've never been in labor. However, I did try to put in subtle hints about a real pregnancy complication sometimes called hypertension or pre-eclampsia/elcampsia.


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